Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘Oh, God,’ she said.

‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

He reached over and took her hand. She held on to him, squeezing hard, then let go.

‘What did you tell him?’ she asked.

‘That he could go jump. If he tried anything funny, he’d regret it.’

She picked up her fork again. The mood had changed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so angry.

‘He can put it all over the front page of the Telegraph if he wants to. I wouldn’t give him the time of day.’

‘We’re giving him nothing,’ Harrigan said. ‘What’s he going to do? If he puts it out there, he’s in breach of client confidence. What’s that going to do for his reputation? If he does, I’ll go after him through the Bar Council.’

‘If it does get out, it’ll affect me at work. Clive won’t like it.’

‘Are you going to tell him about it?’

‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘He might take me off what I’m working on and I don’t want that. I don’t have to tell him everything. My life’s my own.’

‘How was it today?’

She shrugged, frowning. Her work was beginning to affect her, he thought. Grace, at ease, put other people at their ease, laughed and made him laugh. The woman who liked to dress up and go out and enjoy herself was another self to the one who dressed so plainly for work. When she was under pressure, she changed; she put on a hard, excluding shell. He knew that Newell was partly to blame for that cold barrier being there, but that didn’t help things. He didn’t want her to become like that again, the way she had been when he’d first met her. He wanted her light-hearted and full of sparkle again, the way she had been these last few years.

‘It was okay,’ she said. ‘I think I achieved something so that was good. Do you know a Mark Borghini? He’s my contact with the police. He asked about you.’

‘Mark? Yeah, I know him. He’s not exactly Mr Tactful but he’s good value. That’s good for you, babe. You can rely on him. What did he want to know?’

‘Just how you were.’

He waited but she seemed to have nothing else to say. He let the subject pass. Knowing Mark Borghini was her contact made him feel better about the work she was doing.

‘This escape-it’s madness,’ she said. ‘The police are going to find whoever’s behind it, sooner rather than later because they’ll put everything they’ve got into it. And when they do, those people will end up dead.’

‘It’s suicide,’ Harrigan agreed. ‘Makes no sense to me at all. Whatever’s going on, we don’t want anything to do with it. Or Griffin. He’s a strange fish. He told me he was representing Newell pro bono.’

‘Why?’

‘As far as I can tell, for the information in Newell’s head. Maybe that’s how Griffin makes his money. Extortion.’

‘It won’t work with us,’ Grace said.

‘No way.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re tired, babe.’

‘Yeah. Let’s go to bed.’

As they were clearing up, their home phone rang: a private unlisted number they gave out only to friends and family. Grace glanced at Harrigan.

‘For you?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know who it could be at this time of night.’

‘Could be Nicky, I suppose. He can call this late.’

Her brother ran a restaurant on the Central Coast and sometimes rang at the end of his working day to chat to her. She picked up the phone, putting it on speakerphone.

‘Hi there,’ she said, cautiously.

A woman began to laugh, softly and maliciously. ‘Grace,’ she said and laughed again.

Grace turned off the speakerphone but left the line open, then picked up her work mobile and called the Orion control centre. ‘I have an anonymous call on my home phone right now. The caller said my first name, then began to laugh.’ She glanced at the phone. ‘They’ve just hung up. Can you trace that call and log the time and date, please? Thank you.’

‘Why do you think that call’s related to your work?’ Harrigan asked when she’d finished.

‘I don’t know for sure. But I was followed home from my op tonight.’ She took a breath, knowing this simple confidence was breaking the rules. ‘All the way to Darling Street by someone who wanted me to know they were there. Whoever they were, they were trying to frighten me.’

‘Are you supposed to tell me that?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Was it Newell?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He couldn’t know I’d be there at that time.’

Harrigan reflected that he often didn’t know where she was or what she was doing either.

‘Is that what this operation is?’ he asked. ‘Dangerous?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You should have told me, babe. I need to know if you’re in danger. It’s not just me. There’s Ellie as well.’

‘I know that. I never stop thinking about it. Since Clive’s been there, it’s been impossible,’ she said. ‘You can’t tell anyone the simplest thing.’

‘He’s a control freak. Forget him. It’s late.’

They went to bed and, in defiance of the phone call, made love. Grace’s thought was that she needed this to feel human, needed the comfort. Just to let the physical pleasure cleanse her of what had happened that day and bring her back to herself. She felt the warmth of his body and was never more at ease with herself.

Harrigan thought of this as his fundamental territory; something he had that no one else could touch. If everything else was gone, this exclusiveness would still exist between them. This closeness was a refuge for them both, somewhere they needed no disguises and where no one could threaten either of them. The room, like the house, was their own world, safe, inviolable. Later, he lightly traced out her face.

‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘You have a face like the Madonna.’

‘And what kind of face does she have?’

‘Like yours. Clean. Dark, beautiful eyes.’

‘She’s more peaceful than me, she must be. I’m not a peaceful person.’

‘I just want you the way you are,’ Harrigan replied.

Harrigan woke in the early morning feeling a deep sense of unease. He couldn’t go back to sleep; the phone call had jangled him too much. By the radio clock, it was 3:15 am. After a while he got up, pulled on his tracksuit and went to check the house. First, he looked in on Ellie. Her long, dark-fair hair was tousled over the pillow. She turned over just after he looked through the open doorway but kept on sleeping. Very quietly he shut the door in case she should wake and hear him moving around. He stood in the darkness of the hallway, thinking.

His house was secure; his history with the police made that essential. He had a drawerful of death threats against him and his family, some more lurid than others. It wasn’t only criminals who wanted him harmed or dead; there were police, some still serving and some not, who had scores to settle with him. There were bars on his windows, security doors on all the entrances, and an alarm system installed. There was a number to ring at police headquarters if he or his family needed protection. His car was always parked in the single locked brick garage, the only one there was room for on his block. Grace’s car was kept behind the locked gate at the front of the house. The wall that ran between his garden and Birchgrove Park was higher than he would have liked but he had no choice. Maybe one day, when people were dead or had worn out their passions, these locks and bars could go, but not now.

He went downstairs and checked the doors, front and back, including those that led out onto the deck. The old exotic trees that had been planted in the backyard decades ago were beginning to die. Soon they would need to be replaced. Their mostly bare branches were black against the pale glow of the city lights in the night sky. In this partial light, he saw two possums, mother and offspring, sitting on the rail of the deck, silhouettes against the lighter shadows. Suddenly they were gone. Harrigan tensed, waiting, but saw no one.